RESPECT AS A PERSONAL AFFAIR: A short story of yearning for it and earning it

Within printed matters, respect is the empty space between the text and the boarder of any given page. Allegorically, respect attributed to others and to ourself depends much on our actual ontology. For instance, you don't have to visit my lectures, the supervisor of my dissertation announce. Reading his 120 pages-long explanation of the world of marketing appeared one of respecting his work, he announced. Sitting in his classes, entertained and actively engaged was another, he further specified. However, during thirty years, few students earned his upright respected by following his announcement; stunned but vaguely pleased they collaborated as most other professors at our faculty demanded much more from them and, after being challenging them, they were rarely rewarded with as many good grades as within the course of my supervisor. Alongside his research, which remained during thirty years without any substantial changes, he turned into an increasingly unsatisfied and unhappily persona. He referred to himself as a management scientist with much cynicism, which gradually turned bitter. So was his view in general respective to his field of research. Most of his fellows respected his bitter cynicism as a result of his inherent longing of becoming a musician. As for many around him, that inherent longing was my bound with him and on how, after I met him, I earned his respect; this, because myself, I was somewhat wearing an inherently growing unhappiness still within me. Most of all, it was my ticket to work as a researcher; a desire growing within me since I could read. Within a wide range of books and, in particular, many monumental works in philosophy and belletristic, I always felt at home. I looked up to personalities like Marie Curie, John Nash, Alan Turing, his wife Clara and Robert Schumann, Mozart, while debates at my family's table became gradually unbearable.

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Two semesters after knowing him, the peculiar professor teaching for thirty years his 120-pages long view on the world through his lens of strategic marketing, he offered to work as his research assistant. Placed me as a doctoral student in the management science program. Gradually, my writing of songs turned mostly as a way of meeting up with almost exclusively inspired and very creative fellows. Dancing or rehearsing chord progressions with my bands or by myself or allowed me—as a writer restructuring my thoughts and respective feelings without using words but yet exploring them—to trial and error their inherent logic. However, the board of supervisors to my dissertation had considered my core thesis out-the-box; then encouraged me to give it up. “You are a musician but no management scientist,” I had been informed politely in greatest respect for my supervisors unhappy identity.

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Respecting this peculiar advice from then on became crucial to my following personal growth as a management scientist. In order to embrace their advice positively and without neglecting their strongest opinion about myself, I then began to shift from writing songs towards keeping a diary. As my musicality was driven by—almost exclusively—absorbing preexisting songs structures alongside—almost solely—adopting my own lyrics, this shift had instantly begun to be relieving myself from constantly high pressure amongst many musicians. Above, I then engaged myself no more in making up my insufficient feeling for rhythmical progressions through hard work with a metronome. Rather I enjoyed myself reading in depth literature respective to my dissertation. Comparingly fast and proactively I then absorbed the paradigmatic change of our field of research, an effort my board of supervisors still struggled today. Clearly, my experiences as a songwriter insofar appeared of greatest use, because I recommend myself less as an outstanding talent than they themselves. At best, I considered myself as a clever student with great ambition excelling almost exclusively regarding my stamina. However, restructuring my dissertation within a model absorbing a different set of assumptions alongside adopting my thoughts and respective feelings appeared relatively simple to me. From my songwriting activity, I knew comparingly much on excelling in this task. Handing in the publication of the results of my research in three different versions since their encouragement to focus on my songwriting followed well-elaborated approach. Almost without guidance, I got ultimately promoted.